When Design Week launched in 1986, it did so with a campaign which featured pictures of churches. The point was that design, unlike some professions, is a vocation for many people, who are drawn to it on an almost spiritual level.
And like many vocations, it can take hold early in people’s lives. So we asked a range of designers to share their first memory of being interested in the way something was designed…
Jamie Ellul – A toy-packaging secret
It was Easter 1986. I was nine years old and had a dairy intolerance that gave me asthma attacks. Which meant no Easter eggs for little Jamie. Ever.
Instead, my parents always let me choose a toy. And in 1986 the toy to have was a Transformers Dinobot. I still remember getting the Diplodocus (called Sludge as you’re asking) home and unboxing it REALLY carefully.
Because I loved the Transformers packaging almost as much as the toys inside. I’d keep the boxes in my wardrobe on the highest shelf so my little brother couldn’t get his greasy mitts on them.
As a kid who loved art, I swooned over the slick airbrushed bots that wrapped around the pack. But the thing I loved the most was the scale on the back that gave you the bot’s scores out of 10 for strength, intelligence, speed etc. The stats could only be seen when you put a red acetate sheet over the top. Little did I know that was a classic graphic designer’s print trick.
A few years later we moved house. I came home from school to find that my mum had cleared out my wardrobe and binned all the boxes. I never forgave her.
Jamie Ellul is founder of Supple Studio.
Chloe Templeman – A self-designed corporate logo
I didn’t know design or branding was a thing when I was seven – but looking back, I guess that’s when I created my first logo. I can still picture it perfectly to this day.
For context, my sister and I used to play a game called “Offices,” which basically meant sitting in our room with a dial-up phone, an old keyboard, and some blank paper, pretending we ran a global empire.
To me, it was obvious our fake company needed branding. So I hand-drew a logo, made letterheads, and even designed a sign for the door.
The logo? A large X with small W, F, and C in three quadrants, and a dot in the fourth. We named the company World Fuji Cowa – reflecting our global reach and, of course, “Cowa” from “Cowabunga!” – a nod to our deep Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles obsession at the time.
I may not have known the word for it then, but that was the moment I discovered my love for design.
Chloe Templeman is executive creative director at Pearlfisher.
Benjamin Hubert – A formative school trip
My earliest memory of being interested in how something was designed was when I was about 15. Our design and technology teacher took my class on a school trip to London – which I hadn’t visited much at that age – and we went to the Royal College of Art.
We visited the graduate show for the MA Vehicle Design, and it was really eye-opening. I didn’t even realise people studied that kind of thing at the time. The work was speculative, futuristic, highly creative and extremely varied.
I vividly remember exploring the RCA building itself – seeing the studios, the workshops, the prototypes being produced. The physicality of so many future forward visions was really inspiring.
At that point, I wasn’t using the internet that much – I was mostly using books as reference – so it was one of the first opportunities I had to see people creating design work in real life and bringing ideas to fruition.
That trip made me want to become an automotive designer and it inspired me to start building things – walking robots and tourist submarines – throughout my GCSE and A-Level years.
Later, when I studied design at Loughborough, I started to understand and focus on more of a holistic sense of human-centred design, and that paved the way for what is now LAYER.
Benjamin Hubert is an industrial designer and founder of LAYER.
Mary Hemingway – Pop-ups and paper sculptures
I remember being fascinated by pop-up books from a very young age and spending hours trying to decipher the mechanisms by carefully peering into the gaps to see how it all worked.
My favourite was Haunted House by Jan Pienkowski (which I still have a copy of, and which I read to my son when he was little).
This led to me being given books throughout childhood containing things that could be constructed from the pages – I have memories of a 3D paper Edwardian house and a theatre based on The Nutcracker ballet with moving parts and stage scenery.
This fascination with how a flat piece of paper can be used in so many different ways to create imaginative worlds sparked my interest in how things are designed.
Mary Hemingway is a graphic designer and founder of Design by Women.
Terry Stephens – The visual joys of multi-pack cereal
When Kellogg’s reintroduced the variety cereal multipack in 1989, eight-year-old Terry was hooked.
In our house, it was very much a “summer holidays treat” – I can still hear my mum saying those words – and while most kids cared about the sugar and/or the hidden toy, I was fascinated by the packaging.
Those tiny, cellophane-wrapped boxes were a riot of colour, bold typography, and playful mascots – a true assault on the eyeballs.
I became so obsessed that I’d redraw the covers one by one. I’m not sure why the multipack fascinated me more than single boxes, but there was magic in seeing them together – clearly part of a set, yet each bursting with its own individual personality.
A miniature house of brands, wrapped in cellophane. What’s not to love?
Not only was it the start of my interest in design but quite possibly the start of my fascination with Mass Fantastic® branding…
Terry Stephens is founder and executive creative director of Nomad.
Yas Banks – Fashion doodles and over-the-top cards
Honestly, it probably started with a notebook I took everywhere as a kid – packed with doodles of people and my own little fashion designs. I was convinced I’d be a fashion designer.
What fascinated me most was the process – layering textures, mixing fabrics, experimenting with shapes, and deciding how something should look and feel. I work in a different practice now, but that early love of process still shapes where I find inspiration today.
There was also a family friend with a full-on card-making set-up in their living room: textured paper, 3D flowers, buttons, glitter glue, the works. I’d spend hours making the most over-the-top greeting cards.
At the time, I thought I was just having fun, but looking back, I was quietly falling in love with lay-out, typography, and the calm satisfaction of bringing visual elements into balance.
Yas Banks is a freelance graphic designer.
Isaac Sodipo – Cars that looked fast
As a child, I was always drawing. I’d sketch anything I saw, from cartoons on TV like Sonic the Hedgehog, to cars I spotted in real life.
Fast cars in particular fascinated me. I was obsessed with the sharp, angular lines of Lamborghinis, the wedge shapes, bold spoilers, speed vents, and the magic of pop-up headlights. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was beginning to notice the design details that made these cars feel so different from the Ford Escort my parents drove.
They weren’t just fast, they looked fast.
Eventually, I started adding those features to my own car drawings, making up designs that blended what I saw with what I imagined. While I didn’t go on to design cars, that early fascination with form and feeling has stayed with me.
Today, working in graphic design, I still think about how subtle details like shape, colour and typography can shift how something is perceived. Looking back, I realise I’ve always been drawn to the way design can express personality and intent, even in something as simple as a sketch of a car.
Isaac Sodipo is design director at Coley Porter Bell.
Anna Burles – A hideous self-made dress
My earliest memory of getting intrigued by how things were actually made was through dabbling in dressmaking. My mum remembers me buying a sewing pattern and some lemon and pale blue fabric at the age of 11 and making an 80s batwing sleeve dress from it.
It was quite hideous, unflattering and very amateurish (much harder than I thought!).
But I loved the process and became obsessed with having my own room, not just to get some space from my brother and sister, who I shared a room with, but so I could decorate it the way I wanted.
I was in the Toyah Willcox fan club at the time and had dyed my fringe with an orange/pink flash, so I remember draping neon bright scarves from the walls and ceiling around my bed to create what I thought was a punk rock four poster.
Anna Burles is creative director and co-founder of Run for the Hills.
Greig Anderson – The logos that defined my life
Looking back, I’ve always been drawn to design – I just didn’t know it had a name.
As a kid, I was fascinated by how things worked and why they looked the way they did. My dad, a mechanical engineer, would take things apart and rebuild them, and I’d watch, amazed by how he seemed to understand it all.
I was more drawn to logos – tracing them, redrawing them on my school bag, skateboard, and jotters. I remember drawing the Chicago Bulls logo over and over until I could do it from memory. It’s funny how it always comes up as one of those logos that when flipped, it looks like an alien reading a book.
The Vans logo, Nike logo variations, and Oasis wordmark filled the rest of the space – icons of the things I loved most as a teenager.
One day in fifth year, a careers advisor saw my sketches and asked, “Have you ever thought about being a graphic designer?” I hadn’t even heard of the job before.
That simple question planted a seed that’s shaped everything since. Funny how the things we do for fun as kids often hold the clearest clues about where we’re meant to go.
Greig Anderson is creative director at Freytag Anderson and AND Golf.